Trying To Get Started Again!

I am really trying to post to this blog more often but job and entertainment keep getting in the way .  But I did manage to start some Christmas gift making.
I have a girlfriend who loves unusual and flashy jewelry.  So I thought of a design that might fit her.
I recently saw a necklace design on Pinterest that I thought I could use for inspiration.
It spurred me on to make this for her.  Since I have recently decided to do more metal smithing and learn all I can it was a good chance to try it out on a small scale.

It is by no means real "smithing". But it's a start.

I drew out the pattern and cut it out with shears (don't have a saw yet):

I wanted to put beads where all the little marks are but decided that was too safe for this girl.  I tried all kinds of beads that just didn't feel right like these below:

 Kind of liked these but not enough of them.

  These just don't look right.

  These were too feminine with the metal.

So, I used a vintage necklace that I got at an antique store and took it apart for the brass beads and voila!!! there it was.  See what you think:

It's really weird how the metal plate looks so different in different light.  I hammered the hell out of it, then annealed it for more fire scale and finally sanded it.   I still have more sanding and polishing (not too much polishing) to do.  But I love how it turned out and I think she will too.


I bought an old watch with the insides still there and couldn't decide what to do with it.  I finally had an idea (although not a really unique one).  I used resin to fill the face and then added some rhinestone chain around the face.  The beads I used are some very old grungy looking carved stone beads.  They are a light greenish color with discoloration on a lot of them.  For me that's cool as I like old looking stuff.  What do you think:

Excuse the lighting.  It's been rainy and cloudy here all weekend. But oh well it's the best I could do.  I think i'm going to put this one in my etsy shop just have to figure out pricing. What's on your work bench now?

Thanks for reading!